Preaching Justice in an Age of Globalization

On Monday my friend and colleague Jacob Myers and I will teach the first installment of our course “Preaching Justice in an Age of Globalization” at Candler School of Theology. We are both really excited about this opportunity and course. I’ve taught several courses in ethics, leadership, and nonprofit management at Emory University’s Oxford College campus, and TA’d for courses at Candler before, but this will be the first course I’ve created and taught from scratch to seminarians. It should be a great experience – I’m sure for me, I hope for the students!

Months ago Jake called me up and asked to meet with me about an idea he had brewing in the back of his mind. The idea? He really wanted to teach a course on preaching justice that involved serious social engagement and he wanted me to dream up the course and teach it with him. His excitement quickly rubbed off on me and we were coming up with ideas on the spot. Now we finally get to teach it.

The impetus for the course were some burning questions that we both have wrestled with for awhile: “How does one preach about issues of social injustice in ways that encourage real engagement and work for social justice rather than one-time offerings to be sent off to people one never actually engages? How do we get Christians to understand, from the pulpit, that the gospel demands real work for justice and not just “charity?” And what tools do we need to provide ministers to be able to make informed decisions about what justice demands to avoid uninformed analysis or surface politicization of these issues?” Well, I’m the social ethicist and he’s the homiletician and we’re going to try our best to start figuring this out with our students this semester.

Our course description and objectives, as written in the syllabus, is this:

COURSE DESCRIPTION
This course aims to empower preachers to address issues of global injustice and oppression through their preaching ministry with the hope of mobilizing congregations to engage constructively in these issues. To that end, this course will equip students with critical tools to prepare congregations for ethical engagement in an age of globalization through their preaching ministry. We will model the kind of social analysis, theological/ethical reflection, and prophetic preaching we envision — one that is globally aware and locally mobilized — through in-depth engagement with a particular globalized context: viz., Atlanta. This “case study” will provide the opportunity for students to hone the skills they are learning — social and ethical analysis and prophetic preaching — by engaging a relevant contemporary context of social injustice, structural violence, and interpersonal harm that continues to have global implications. Atlanta serves as a particularly fascinating case study for preaching justice: from its role as a hub of the civil rights movement to its status as an urban epicenter for human trafficking; from its recent role as a symbolic site of contestation over American immigration policy to its burgeoning refugee population. As a necessary component of the course, students will be required to participate in an immersion experience during the semester that will serve as a catalyst for ethical, theological, and homiletical reflection.

COURSE OBJECTIVES
At the conclusion of the course students should have gained . . .
. . . a critical awareness of the complexities of social analysis in an age of globalization and a familiarity with the tools necessary to conduct such analyses
. . . a deeper knowledge of a particular social issue that is especially germane to the global injustices present in Atlanta (e.g., human trafficking, refugees, sustainability, immigration policy)
. . . a critical understanding of the challenges and opportunities the current cultural realities present to a preaching ministry attuned to the realities of global injustice
. . . a deepening of the skills learned in ES 501 (pre-requisite) in such a way as to better integrate theological and ethical analysis into the practical tasks of ministry, especially preaching. This course also serves as a complement to ES 609/M 619: Theology of Social Ministry/Social Mission of the Christian Church

. . . a deepening of the skills learned in P501 (pre-requisite) with a particular emphasis on the arts of prophetic and testimonial preaching

. . . a capacity to couple experience (both reported and personal) with biblical texts to craft sermons that lead to congregational engagement in issues of global injustice.

If you’re interested in seeing the entire syllabus you can find it here: Preaching Justice in an Age of Globalization Syllabus

It’s going to be a fun semester – wish me luck!

Reflections on the 2012 Society of Christian Ethics Annual Meeting

Theology. Ethics. Politics. War. Peace. Sushi. MLK Memorial. Asian-American camaraderie. That pretty much sums up my weekend at the annual meeting of the SCE this weekend in DC.

As usual it was an enjoyable time of learning, seeing old friends, and meeting new ones. The general topic of this year’s meeting was “War and Peace in the Age of Terrorism and the Presidency of Barack Obama.” As someone quite interested in the ethics of war and peace I found many of the sessions fascinating.

During the conference I sat in on the following papers and/or panels:

Andrew Bacevich, “The Sources of American Conduct” (Plenary Address)

In his 1947 essay “The Sources of Soviet Conduct,” the American diplomat George F. Kennan sought to describe the
“political personality” of Soviet Power — in essence explaining why the Soviet Union behaved as it did in the world. My presentation will attempt something similar for the United States today. Kennan found his explanation in “ideology and circumstances.” My presentation will include those factors while adding several others, among them identity, culture, political economy, and inertia.

Matthew A. Shadle, “What is at Stake in the Debate Over Presumptions in the Just War Tradition” (I found his presentation quite helpful and interesting in sorting out some of the internal debates among just war theorists over the “presumption against violence” many have recently espoused should be/is part of the tradition.)

Advocates of the Christian just war tradition have divided over whether that tradition is best characterized by a
presumption against violence or one in favor of justice. The two camps have been largely talking past one another because the bases for disagreement lie in underlying issues of fundamental moral theology. Therefore attempts to resolve the dispute through appeals to the just war tradition itself will prove fruitless unless the more fundamental issues of disagreement such as the definition of the moral object, the relationship between the object and the intention, and the question of absolute moral norms, are first clarified.

Mark Allman and Tobias Winright, “Fruits and Loops: A Robustly Theological and Realistic Just War Theory for the Twenty-First Century” (I found this session helpful in moving the conversation about just war past the 100% just or 0% just binary that often accompanies judgments of specific wars.)

We propose an enhancement and expansion of just war theory that is theologically grounded and relevant to the contemporary realities of war in two ways: 1) Connecting just peacemaking and post-war ethics to the traditional just war categories of jus ad bellum and jus in bello, thereby closing the loop (ante-ad-in-post bellum) for a more comprehensive theory; 2) Tapping into the recent but neglected category of “comparative justice,” thereby suggesting that the absence of justice ad bellum need not poison all that follows. A kind of good fruit (imperfect justice) can be harvested from a bad tree.

Hak Joon Lee and Ki Joo Choi, “Asian and Asian-American Public Theology” (This session made clear the possibilities, difficulties, and limits of doing “Asian American Public Theology.”)

What is the relationship between theology and public concern? And how is that relationship (re)constituted by publics whose identities have been externally and internally contested? Asian and Asian American Christianity receives the already-fraught challenge of public theology and situates it in terms of various identitarian politics: ethnicity, race (whatever “race” now means), gender, class, denomination, and so on. In turn, public theology situates these open-ended contestations by placing them within this other kind of contested space, that is, church and world. This concurrent session attempts to give voice to an Asian and Asian-American key of public theology.”

Stanley Hauerwas, “Bearing Reality” (Presidential Address)

Stephen L. Carter, “The Morality of Targeted Killing” (Plenary)

The Obama Administration has made targeted killing the principal focus of its pursuit of terror groups. As American troops depart Iraq and Afghanistan, the role of targeted killing will become even greater. Some observers have raised questions about whether the practice is consistent with just war theory. I will discuss that question, and the significant problem that targeted killing poses for democracy.”

Elizabeth M. Bounds, “Claiming the Ordinary in Christian Social Ethics” (My teacher Dr. Bounds continues to push me in thinking about the function and method of Christian Social Ethics in 21st century America. In addition, her discussion of the lives of imprisoned women highlighted the contextual and institutionally mediated nature of lived morality.)

Christian social ethics has assumed “a social-ethical mission to transform the structures of society in the direction of social justice” (Dorrien 2010). But the relationship of a principled “ought” and a social –cultural “is” undergirding the mission of a Rauschenbusch or a Niebuhr is no longer valid. The turn to virtue ethics addresses this gap, but often at the expense of justice claims. I will suggest that attending to ordinary practices enables exploration of complex experience rarely “solved” by prescriptive claims. I will use some examples drawn from various ethnographic works, especially with incarcerated persons, to suggest some implications of doing social ethics rooted in ordinary lives.”

Dan Cantey, “On the Gospel and the Redemption of the Soldier: Theological Reflections from a Veteran of the
Invasion of Iraq (2003)” (A colleague of mine at Emory who combined deep theological reflection, drawing on Augustine, Luther, Pachomius, and Philip Berrigan, with his own experience of military life.)

What options does the Christian gospel offer, in its varied interpretations, for making use of the experience of military life, including war? In addressing this question in terms of peace of conscience and penance, I shall sketch two contrasting visions of the Christian faith, “abolition” and “perdurance,” emphasizing their understandings of grace in light of the struggle against death and its deliverers, notably war. In each case, the gospel can absorb the experience of war into its prerogatives, though the associated practices of penance differ considerably.

Michael Walzer, “Conceptions of Peace in the Hebrew Bible” (Plenary)

Margaret R. Pfeil, “Terrible Luminosity: Social Sin, Systemic Reconciliation, and the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki” (A very interesting paper about nuclear proliferation that has motivated me to dig deeper into Dr. Pfeil’s work on reconciliation. Her work on sin and reconciliation seems like it will be helpful for me in my dissertation.)

This essay will develop a systemic account of possible practices of reconciliation in correlation with the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Against the horizon of the sacramentality of material creation, the holistic framework of systems theory suggests practices of social reconciliation rooted in liturgy, including the cultivation of contemplative awareness, fasting and penance, and linking systemic environmental healing with the restoration of right relationship, through communal examination of conscience.

In addition to these papers I sat in on a couple of panel and working group sessions on Asian/Asian-American Christian Ethics. As a member of this working/interest group, I always find these sessions times of intellectual and professional growth.

This was only my second time at SCE, but I’ve found it to be a friendly community of scholarship that contributes to my growth and challenges my thinking. Where else in the world do hundreds of esteemed theologians and ethicists gather for several days to discuss deeply and debate vigorously the pressing issues of our day?

If this inadequate overview at all piqued your interest I encourage you to attend next year’s meeting in Chicago. I’m sure it will be a joy!

Call for Applications: The Equator Peace Academy

Some colleagues of mine have organized a two-week summer academy to take place in Uganda and Rwanda this summer. It grows out of the passion of several faculty members at Uganda Martyrs University and the work of the International Summer School on Religion and Public Life, and will focus on issues of ethnic and religious tolerance and conflict transformation in east and central Africa. I encourage anyone interested in these issues to consider applying. See the information below:

The Equator Peace Academy (EPA) is an annual international Academy (Summer School) designed to confront thematic issues in selected countries of the Great Lakes Region of Africa. This is a call to all interested parties to participate in the first Academy from 12th to 26th August 2012. The Academy is organised in Uganda and Rwanda under the theme Whose Community? Memory, Conflict and Tradition, with the aim of confronting the problems of intolerance to diversity, divisive governance and the turbulent past. This annual event employs an open, dialogic, experiential, and reflective methodology together with pragmatic solution-based learning to analyze contemporary conflicts in the region (and world over). Our goal is to understand and overcome the type of social segregation and violence that have so often characterized relations between different communities in this region.

Join us by filling the application form on http://www.fiuc.org/umu
The deadline for receiving applications is 25 March 2012
The EPA works as a consortium together with the International Summer School on Religion and Public Life whose program will be held in Indonesia from 3-17th July 2012 http://www.issrpl.org/programs/application.html

See the full call for applications here: Equator Peace Academy Call for Applications

See the ISSRPL Call to Fellows here.

Is the United Methodist Church a Pacifist or Just-War Church? Or is it Something Else Entirely?

Twenty-five years ago the United Methodist Church published In Defense of Creation: The Nuclear Crisis and a Just Peace to help their members think through the ethics of war in a nuclear age. It was a controversial document in theological circles, with the most famous critiques coming from just-war theorist Paul Ramsey and pacifist Stanly Hauerwas in their co-authored book Speak Up for Just War or Pacifism. The overriding criticism of the piece was “Pick a side! Are you a peace church or not?!” The United Methodist bishops chose a (seemingly ambiguous) middle-way of sorts that named war sinful, admitted its necessity in times of extreme injustice (like genocide), and affirmed the conscientious decision of individual members to choose pacifism or participation in certain wars. This position seems wishy-washy to many theorists, but seems to represent the lived experiences of its members rather well.

My teacher Ellen Ott Marshall wrote an article several years ago titled “United Methodist Witness in Times of War: Five Characteristics (begins on p. 21)” in which she tries to makes sense of the church’s stance. She identifies five characteristics of the church’s stance: (1) a clear distinction between God and government, (2) a recognition of the continuing necessity of repentance, (3) reflection upon the church’s teaching that “war is incompatible with the
teachings and example of Christ,” (4) the requirement that Christians work for “positive peace,” and (5) a commitment to the process that “restores the image of God in all creation.” In other words, the United Methodist witness in war is to never allow one’s allegiance to God to be trumped by one’s allegiance to nation, to continually repent for one’s sinfulness so as to avoid hubris, always keep in mind the sinfulness of killing in war, and to commit oneself to a process of positive peacemaking that does justice rather than merely avoids conflict. For many, this is moral confusion or double-speak. For others it is an attempt to be faithful to the Christ while also accepting one’s responsibility for the world.

Recently, the Political Theology blog has had four Methodist theologians/ethicists reflect on this document, and the United Methodist Church’s teaching on war more generally, and we see some of the same debates occurring today that took place in the days of Ramsey and Hauerwas.

Tobias Winright introduces the series in his piece “On the 25th Anniversary of the United Methodist Bishops’ ‘In Defense of Creation’”

Kevin Carnahan tries to make sense of the UM stance in comparison to other denominational stances in his piece “United Methodism on War and Peace: Embracing the Tension between Optimism and Pessimism.”

D. Stephen Long argues for some sort of pacifism not grounded in the main halls of power in the UMC in his piece “War, Peace, and the Wesleyan Tradition’s Charism: to be ‘perfect in love in this lifetime’.”

J. Philip Wogaman argues that the ambivalence of the UM stance is a good thing in his piece “On War and Peace: Methodism’s Responsible Ambivalence.”

Finally, Nicole L. Johnson argues for an active nonviolence, rather than passivism, in her piece “’Inaction’ in the Face of Injustice? United Methodism on War and Peace.”

Now, I am not a member of the UMC and don’t exactly plan on joining it any time soon (even though I’ve done all of my graduate theological study at Methodist schools!). So, why do I find this interesting? Well, beyond my ongoing general interest in the Christian ethics of war and peace is my ecclesial interest in how churches/denominations that do not take an absolute stand on the pacifism vs. just war question (like, say, Anabaptists and Roman Catholics do) navigate the messiness of war and peace.

I am a member of the churches of Christ. We have no governing body or system beyond the local elders of each congregation, and we have no “official” stance on whether Christians can engage in war except for our appeal to “what the Bible teaches” (which is obviously contested). Within our ranks there are people who fall all along the spectrum of possible stances: crusaders, realists, just warriors (of various degrees), pacifists in the mold of Martin Luther King, Jr., and sectarian pacifists who eschew public engagement. We’ve got them all.

Now, trying to maintain Christian unity in times of political division can be a difficult thing. This proves especially difficult in wartime. It is nearly impossible in any cofC congregation that allows for or encourages open discussion of “political” matters within its membership (of course, saying the “political” is not “spiritual” and so ignoring the questions is one, unhealthy, way to avoid these dilemmas). So, I recognize the UMC as another denomination trying to makes sense of the lived diversity of Christians on controversial and vitally important matters. Whether they have been successful or not I do not know. I do know, however, that we in the cofC need to start somewhere to make sense of these important issues, and the example of the UMC cannot be any worse than where we are now.

Three (Wonderful) Reflections on Getting Tenure from Two Scholars, Mentors, and Friends

Over the last several days two teachers/mentors/friends of mine have written blog posts about their journey through the academic labyrinth of achieving tenure at Claremont School of Theology. The reflections are deeply personal and present stunningly honest accounts of the abyss that can be the academy. They debunk the myths of the hyper-indivdualized and cloistered academic and the accompanying myths of merit that underlie the mythology of our institutions of higher education. More importantly, they present the voices of those traditionally excluded from those perpetually ivory covered towers filled with privileged white men. For these and other reasons I am grateful for their stories.

The first two posts come from Grace Yia-Hei Kao. I have never studied under Prof. Kao, but I was a student representative on the search committee that selected her to replace one of my closest academic mentors. Since then she has served as a mentor of sorts from afar as an Asian-American faculty member who has helped guide me through one of the most important professional societies in my field. In addition, she has gone out of her way to clear paths for me to get my feet wet in this peculiar profession. She has written two posts detailing her path toward tenure which highlight two things that resonate with me and highlight her feminist and Asian-American commitments: the intrinsically communal nature of achieving tenure and the debts we owe to those who come before us. Check out her posts

Getting Tenure, Part I: It Took a Village

Getting Tenure, Part II: On Being the First of My Kind

The third post comes from Monica A. Coleman. Prof. Coleman was a reader for my master’s thesis (and a gracious critic of my stance on “redemptive suffering”) and has remained a friendly face at conferences and online. She has written about the difficulties of living the academic life while struggling with depression. Her piece is titled “Up for Tenure, Facing Depression.” (This link was previously to an earlier post that has since been deleted and republished here.)

Those readers still in graduate school or early in their careers as professors would do well to carefully and reflectively read these posts. I have a feeling that I will be returning to them multiple times over the next decade as they serve as guideposts for the journey I am in the earliest stages of traveling.

Thank you Grace and Monica for your willingness to share your journey to help prepare folks like me for ours.

Jesus was an Occupier

Yesterday I wrote a piece responding to Tony Perkins’s piece at CNN in which he claims that Jesus was not an occupier, but was “a free-marketer.” Well, his piece upset me so much I’ve decided to write another response to that ludicrous claim. So, here you go:

Theologically speaking, Christians have a variety of answers to the question of why Jesus was killed: to appease God’s anger for human sin, to bear the just punishment owed to God by a sinful humanity, as a moral example of suffering love for God that future Christians should follow, as a sacrifice offered to God for the forgiveness of human sin, as the ultimate example of God’s unending love for humanity, and several other formulations. Historically speaking, however, there is a nearly universally accepted answer among scholars as to why he was killed: Because Jesus occupied the temple.

During Jesus’ life the temple in Jerusalem was the symbolic center of Jewish religious, political, legal, and economic power. It was, in the words of one of my former Bible professors, the White House, Supreme Court, and Federal Reserve combined. During the time of Jesus’ life the temple had a practice of using “moneychangers.” Moneychangers had the task of exchanging Roman and other money for ‘temple money,’ and charged an exorbitantly high exchange rate to do so. So, the poor, in order to pay their temple taxes or for the animals needed to go through with their religious sacrifices, had to pay more than real value for this necessity. This practice was especially unjust in light of the fact that God allowed for different animals to be sacrificed by people of different socio-economic classes to avoid placing too great a burden on the poor. This temple practice, in spirit if not letter, was a direct violation of God’s law which was constructed with an eye toward helping the poor.

Jesus, within the week that he was killed, became quite angry about this practice. He turned over the tables of the moneychangers and chased the animals and those selling them out of the temple courtyard where this was practiced. He even made a whip and drove people out condemning the powerful for their perversion of holy space and exploitation of the poor and accusing them of turning the house of God, a house of prayer, into a “den of robbers.” Jesus occupied the temple. And they quickly killed him for it.

The Gospel of Mark informs us that it is after this incident that the religious leaders began plotting about how to kill Jesus (Mark 11:18). No longer was Jesus only someone who challenged their religious traditions and authority; now he was messing with their money. Jesus chose to occupy the temple and those he offended chose to have him occupy the cross instead.

Historically speaking, Jesus was a religious leader put to death by the Roman Empire for being a political threat. What was that threat? Jesus challenged the reigning political-economic system (which was also tied to religion) by taking over the space those in power claimed to hold a monopoly over. He shut-down, even if only for a very short-time, the reigning economic system that contributed to reifying the positions of the rich and poor in ancient Israel. He was killed for being an occupier.

I do not share this story to claim that Jesus’ actions in the temple naturally lead to the actions of those occupying Wall Street. Rather, I tell this story because there are some who are claiming that Jesus was not an occupier, and implying that those who are currently occupying Wall Street and other streets are in some way unchristian. This sort of claim is historically inaccurate. In fact, Jesus’ life makes no sense, historically speaking, without the decisive moment leading to his death being that he actually was an occupier.

What does this mean for us today?

It means that we cannot dismiss out of hand the actions of the occupy movement as inherently unchristian or anti-Jesus. Rather, it seems that people engaging in such activity should receive the benefit of the doubt that they are, in fact, being quite faithful to at least one of the key moments in Jesus’ life. Those who oppose such actions and defend the reigning economic system are the ones who bear the burden of proof that they are, in fact, remaining faithful to the example and teachings of Jesus the occupier.

I am not claiming that the occupy movement is, in fact, representative of what Jesus would do today or that it is a new form of church. Rather, I am simply stating that those who claim such actions can have nothing to do with the way of Jesus have seemingly missed a historical fact: Jesus was, perhaps the first, occupier.

Jesus was not a Free-Marketer – No Matter What Tony Perkins Says

Recently, Tony Perkins has argued that Jesus taught free-market economics in a parable recounted in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 19:11-27). I admittedly find the parable one of the most confusing in the New Testament—as it seems to portray Jesus as an overbearing, hated, and vengeful dictator—and I do not intend in this response to argue about the appropriate interpretation of the passage. I know that most biblical scholars, and believe that most faithful Christians, clearly see through Perkins’ blatantly anachronistic interpretation of Jesus’ teaching about the interim period between his ascension and return. Rather, I take issue with Perkins’ willingness to pick and choose which teachings of Jesus he takes at face-value and which ones he ignores.

Admittedly, there are several biblical passages that seem to be able to support Perkins’ general point that a morally constrained participation in a market economy is not only allowable but can be virtuous. Most of those passages are found in Proverbs, however, and they are few and far between in the New Testament. The general picture of the accumulation of wealth in the New Testament—for Jesus, Paul, and James—is skeptical at best, and more often explicitly negative.

I am glad that Mr. Perkins has chosen a passage out of the Gospel of Luke to make his point because it provides a convenient way to rebut his argument. Luke is the favorite of the gospels among “social gospel” types because Jesus’ condemnation of the accumulation of great amounts of wealth is clear and biting. In Luke, Jesus clearly believes that the wealthy are guilty for their greed and (Jesus assumes) unjust gain.

For instance, the first passage relevant to this topic is especially appropriate at this time of year. It is found in the “Magnificat,” Mary’s song of joy about her unborn child (Luke 1:46-55). In this song Mary celebrates that Jesus will bring down the powerful from their thrones, lift up the lowly, fill the hungry, “and sen[d] the rich away empty (v. 53).”

Just a couple of chapters later we see the first sermon Jesus preaches in the Gospel of Luke (Luke 4:16-21). In this sermon he claims to have come to “bring good news to the poor,” free prisoners, give sight to the blind, and “let the oppressed go free.” In addition, Jesus said part of his mission was to “proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This is a reference to God’s command to ancient Israel to practice a “year of Jubilee” which required that debts be forgiven, slaves be set free, and land redistributed to mitigate the perdurance of intergenerational injustices.

In chapter 6 Luke records an abridged version of Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount. Interestingly, Luke records that Jesus said, “Blessed are you who are poor” sans Matthew’s famous addition “in spirit.” Jesus also proclaims woe unto the rich and those “who are full now.” Jesus says in this sermon, by the most basic interpretation of the words he used, that the poor will inherit the Kingdom of God and the rich will not. (Luke 6:20-26)

Jumping ahead in Luke, and skipping a few more relevant passages, we come to the context in which Mr. Perkins finds his favorite free-market parable. Interestingly, it is preceded by several stories that do not mesh with Mr. Perkins delight over his surface interpretation of Jesus’ story that those who have will be given even more, which will be taken from those with less (presumably because they are lazy). The most blatant of these stories is the story generally titled “The Rich Man and Lazarus (Luke 16:19-31).” The message of this story from a surface reading—in which a wealthy man living in a gated community and a homeless man who begs outside said gates both die with the rich man in Hades and the poor man, Lazarus, communing with Abraham—is that the rich will be punished for their wealth and the poor rewarded for their poverty. The implication is that the rich man was rich because of or with indifference to Lazarus’ poverty. Though not explicitly stated, the implicit message is that Lazarus was poor, or at least as poor as he was, partly because of the actions of the rich man.

Following this story is the story of the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-25). The story goes like this: A rich man asked Jesus what he needed to do to inherit eternal life. Jesus, after affirming that the young man adheres to basic commandments such as honoring one’s parents and not murdering, tells him to sell everything and give all the money to the poor. The young man could not bear to do it and left Jesus in a sad mood. The lesson that Jesus draws from this story is that it is nearly impossible “for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God!” Strange, indeed, if just a couple of stories later Jesus encourages people to get rich and then get richer by taking the money of the less-well-off, as Mr. Perkins suggests.

Finally, directly before the parable Mr. Perkins shared, and soon after the story of the rich young ruler, there is another story of Jesus encountering a rich man seeking salvation (Luke 19:1-10). This man’s name was Zacchaeus. We do not know exactly what Jesus told Zacchaeus, but we know that Zacchaeus’ response was to give half of his possessions to the poor and pay back everyone he ever cheated four-times what he owed them. I think it safe to assume that Jesus told Zacchaeus to do something very similar to what he told the rich young ruler. Jesus’ message to the wealthy to give a significant portion of their wealth to the poor does not seem to have been a one-time thing.

In light of this brief analysis, it is safe to say that Mr. Perkins must badly be misinterpreting Jesus’ message in Luke 19:11-27, or else we can assume that Jesus was a little confused. Jesus’ message throughout the rest of Luke is clear: Those who continue to accumulate excess wealth while others live and die in poverty should repent by personally changing the balance of economic power by redistributing their own wealth or worry for their souls.

Mr. Perkins concludes by claiming that Jesus “rejected collectivism.” This is a funny thought considering Jesus lived a communal life dependent upon the donations of women and the occasional miracle to feed him and his disciples. Bible scholars universally agree that the biblical books of Luke and Acts were written by the same author and are companion volumes that must be interpreted together. Of course, Acts is famous for telling us that the earliest Christians “had all things in common” because they sold all their possessions and distributed “the proceeds to all, as any had need.” (Acts 2:44-45)

I am not making a claim that these passages provide some explicit teaching of Jesus on how modern-day America should order its economic life. I am saying, however, that Tony Perkins’ claim that Jesus does that is blatantly false, and if Jesus were to be doing such a thing it would not be the unrestrained free-market system Mr. Perkins envisions. A surface reading of Luke 19:11-27 can clearly be read in such a way as to support an unrestrained market. However, reading it in the context of Luke’s overall message makes such an interpretation implausible. My problem with Mr. Perkins argument is not so much that it is a misguided interpretation of scripture, since we all do this from time to time. Rather, it is that it is a blatant use of a proof-text to support one’s already held political-economic ideology. This is an abuse of both religion and politics and should be recognized as such by Christian and non-Christian alike. The social-ethical message of Jesus is not the message imposed upon him by Tony Perkins.

Rejecting Utopias, Embracing Modesty: Reflections on Interreligious Peacebuilding

As many of you know, I spent two weeks this past summer in Bulgaria with The International Summer School on Religion and Public Life. After writing this blog post about my experience I was asked to write an extended reflection for their “Occasional Paper Series.” Well, the piece is up! It is titled “Rejecting Utopias, Embracing Modesty: Reflections on Interreligious Peacebuilding in Light of the International Summer School on Religion and Public Life.” Go check it out!

Also, next year’s school will be in Indonesia. If you’re interested in issues of interreligious dialogue, religious peacebuilding, or religion and public life I encourage you to consider applying.

Forgiveness, Justice, and Reconciliation at the Christian Scholars’ Conference

The first seven Call for Paper listings have been put up at the Christian Scholars’ Conference website. Included among this early offering is a session I’m organizing titled, “Beyond Forgiveness: The Relationship of Justice to Reconciliation.” The call is below:

Much of the theoretical literature (theological, philosophical, social-psychological, etc.) on reconciliation has focused on the relationship between forgiveness and reconciliation, often seeming to equate the phenomena or drawing a linear relationship that leads from forgiveness to reconciliation. In construing the topic in this way it is often assumed or argued that reconciliation and justice are antithetical or have no relevant relation to one another. More recently this tendency has been challenged by theorists engaging restorative justice (for example, John W. De Gruchy, Reconciliation: Restoring Justice for one example of this) or liberation theology (for example, Miguel De La Torre, Liberating Jonah: Forming an Ethics of Reconciliation) as categories that illuminate the nature of reconciliation. This session intends to move this conversation forward by exploring the relationship between justice (retributive, distributive, restorative, etc.) and reconciliation.

For consideration by a peer-review committee, please submit a 250 word abstract to James McCarty at jwmccar@emory.edu by December 21, 2011. Participants will be notified by January 18, 2012 of the status of their submission. Three papers will be presented at the conference.

If you are at all interested in or work in this area I highly encourage you to consider submitting something to the session. The conference should be a wonderful experience and I’d love to be in conversation with you about this topic that is such a central part of my theological interests.

Christian Theologians Take a Stand Against the Death Penalty

In the aftermath of the Troy Davis case several prominent Christian theologians, philosophers, and ethicists (including Cornel West, Stanley Hauerwas, Serene Jones, David Gushee, Miguel De La Torre, Nicholas Wolterstorff, J. Kameron Carter, Carol Newsom, Elizabeth Bounds, Brooks Holifield, Eddie Glaude, Lee C. Camp, and the list goes on…) have signed a petition to end the death penalty written by George Hunsinger and Steffen Losel in the United States. The text of the letter reads:

We believe that the execution of Troy Davis on September 21, 2011 was a grievous wrong.

We reject the grotesque idea that mere “reasons of state” could ever be more important in death penalty cases than the accuracy of its verdicts.

Powerful and mounting doubts about the accuracy of the verdict against Troy Davis led many observers — including Amnesty International, the European Union, a UN Special Rapporteur, a former FBI director, a former U.S. president, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Pope Benedict XVI — to call for a stay of execution. The decision not to grant clemency despite worldwide protests is a terrible stain on our country.

We oppose the death penalty for both principled and pragmatic reasons. In practice death penalty cases have been riddled with misdeeds like prosecutorial misconduct, police coercion of witnesses, misidentification of suspects, and not least racial prejudice — all of which seem to have played an appalling role in the Davis case, as they have in so many others.

More fundamentally, as Christians, we would call upon our churches and our nation to heed the example of Jesus.

• Jesus rejected the law of retaliation (“an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth”) commanding us instead to treat anyone who may have wronged us with a measure of dignity and compassion.

• He intervened to prevent capital punishment when he challenged those who would put to death a woman accused of wrongdoing: “Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to throw a stone at her.”

• Above all, he taught the Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

• The One who forgave his enemies while dying for their sins on the cross — “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do” — is the One who shows us the way.

• Finally, Christians worship a Savior who died by capital punishment. That puts them at odds with any who think capital punishment is a necessity (for the state).

Those who adopted the slogan “I am Troy Davis” were exactly right. Someone we care about might one day be sentenced to death on the testimony of eyewitnesses who later recanted.

We call for an immediate end to the death penalty in the United States, we ally ourselves with all those who work toward this long overdue goal, and we challenge our churches and church leaders to join in this public witness.

Please sign the petition here.